The Cold Shoulder of Nature
by BuddahtheBob
Summary: Jack Frost was a winter spirit. No matter what part of the world he was causing mischief and mayhem in, the cold had always been his friend. But when nature shows its true ferocity, is Jack really as good of friends with the cold as he thinks he is?
1. Eye of the Storm

When Jamie opened his eyes each morning, he was used to either seeing his beloved stuffed rabbit staring back at him or the gray of the ceiling. Occasionally if he was sleeping on his side, he might wake to see his nightstand or the delicate patterns of frost that decorated his bedroom window (courtesy of his newly discovered friend, of course).

This morning, however, was different. When Jamie Benette opened his groggy eyes to begin his day, he was not greeted with the sight of his ceiling. Instead, his chocolate brown eyes met electric blue eyes, complete with a jovial face, soft snow white hair and a ridiculously big grin.

"**AAAIGH**!" Jamie screamed. On instinct he shot out of his bed, only to collide foreheads with the one and only Jack Frost. "Hey there ki- **OW**!" Jack reeled back on his perch from Jamie's headboard and hit his head on the wall. He instantly dropped his shepherd's staff to the floor and cradled his aching head in his hands, trying not to let a string of profanities out in front of his first believer as pain screamed through his head. Jamie, having had the fortune not to hit two sides of his head, recovered first and was now awake enough to realize who his visitor was.

"JACK!" Jamie screamed again, this time out of loving joy. He burst out of his blankets in a frenzy, bouncing over to Jack as though his mattress were a trampoline. Jack was just recovering from his headache when Jamie, unable to control his momentum, crashed into Jack and sent his head back into the wall for the second time. Jack gritted his teeth and scrunched his eyes shut, almost tempted to leave just so his poor head could stop being so intimate with Jamie's wall.

All grievances were forgotten, however, when Jack felt Jamie's tiny arms wind around his stomach. With an innocent tenderness only a child could possess, Jamie pressed Jack's chest to his head, nuzzling Jack with his cheek. Jack's pain melted away and he wrapped an arm around Jamie, scooting down just enough so he was resting on Jamie's bed and he could bring Jamie's cheek to nuzzle his own instead of his chest.

"I'm sorry I screamed Jack, I'm not used to seeing you so close. Especially when I'm just waking up." Jamie apologized sheepishly. Jack only snorted and gave him a soft noogie.

"It's my fault kiddo, I'm still used to being able to be wherever I want and not have anyone freak out."

Jamie nodded understandingly until a look of confusion graced his features.

"Wait, does that mean you've watched me in my sleep before?"

Jack was in the middle of trying to answer without sounding like a complete stalker (sure he had watched Jamie sleep before, but he had always just snuck quick glances from Jamie's window to make sure he was okay, and that was when Jamie didn't know he existed. He didn't know why, he just did (brotherly instincts, maybe?). He'd only started coming into his room when Jamie could see him, and it never occurred to him how badly that could be taken out of context until this very conversation) when both boys heard a door open and the excited patter of little feet approaching Jamie's room.

The bedroom door opened to reveal a wide-eyed little girl, disheveled blonde hair barely hiding her smile. "**JAAAAAAAAAAAAACK**!" She hollered, barreling toward Jamie's bed, only slowing down when her tiny arms could not pull her up to reach her goal. Jack couldn't help but chuckle, reaching out to the dainty form of Sophie Bennette and pulling her up to snuggle in between both him and Jamie. As Jamie had done she wrapped her arms around Jack, giggling and nuzzling him all the while. "So besides watching me in my sleep, why are you here?" Jamie asked Jack with an excited glint in his eye. "Yeah, why? Why, Jack?" Sophie echoed.

Jack held up his hands in mock self-defense. "Don't get judgemental, Jamie. I'm just trying to act more like a guardian. Or a guardian angel, I guess. You get where I'm coming from…"

With this being said, Jack gently detached himself from both Sophie and Jamie and flipped off the bed and onto Jamie's floor. He swiftly kicked his staff up to his hands, twirling it around like a baton for a bit before leaning on it lazily and smirking at the two children in front of him. "…But to answer your question, there if another reason I'm here." He then proceeded to continue twirling the gnarled staff in his hands, every so often glancing back up at Sophie and Jamie to see their reaction.

They looked so full of anticipation and excitement that they would burst. Anything that Jack Frost, harbinger of mischief and Guardian of all things Frozen and Fun, would purposely hold out on telling them had to be worth the agonizing wait.

"Jack, what is it?! Me and Sophie and going to explode if you don't tell us!"

"Yeah, expode!" Sophie exclaimed, jumping up and down on the mattress to prove her point.

Jack only smirked. He stopped twirling his staff and pointed it past Jamie. Jamie followed it until he saw his alarm clock on his nightstand. "What time is it, Jamie?" Jack breathed, almost too full of anticipation himself to speak coherently.

"It's 9:30…a.m.…" Jamie said slowly. He processed this, as did Sophie, until the wonderful realization came and both children turned to each other and screamed "**SNOOW DAAAAY**!"

Both children shouted and whooped as they bounced on the mattress before they jumped off to tackle Jack. Expecting it this time, Jack caught both children and twirled them around in their arms, their shouts of joy and laughter making his ears ring in an oddly pleasant mixture of pain and happiness.

"I know, I know, no death march to school today. Now go put your stuff on, before all the other kids tire out at the park." Jack said as he set both Jamie and Sophie down. Both children shot off like rockets out of the room as soon as they were set down, cheering and yelling all throughout the house.

As Jack skipped back to Jamie's window and climbed through, he sighed contentedly and pulled his frosted blue hood over his head. It was a lot nicer to be recognized for his work than he thought it would be, even if he had to suffer from close contact to walls at times to get it. _"I'm going to have to remember that I'm tangible now when I play pranks,"_ he thought, rubbing the back of his head. He steadied himself on the sill of the window, the ice and snow gathered on its surface a comforting sensation for his feet. With gusto he leapt off the ledge, doing a perfect dive as he called out to the wind. "Wind! Take me to the park!"

He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn't notice the difference in the wind, how it seemed to toss him to his destination rather than carry him to it.

It would get his attention all too well soon enough.


	2. A Far Cry from a Blustery Day

This was definitely a first.

Jack Frost, though nowhere near being completely exhausted, was breathing a little harder than usual.

The snow days he spent with Jamie and Sophie prior to this one seemed to have reaped furious benefits, as he was now sprinting and leaping around the playground, trying desperately not to get bombarded by snowballs. After getting bored with snow angels and icicle sword fighting, Jamie and his friends decided to have a snowball fight, and Jack, always the boisterous show-off, **had** to comment offhand that none of the kids could even hope to hit him.

Damn his pride.

Jack smirked with haughty satisfaction as another snowball missed him and exploded onto a nearby tree. Three more snowballs whizzed past as he flipped and progressed up the playground equipment, white powder coating the brightly colored metal as the projectiles narrowly missed their target. Though Jamie had a good arm and had been trained by Jack himself, 300 years of practice was not bested by 2 or 3 months of games.

He'd have to work harder at freezing Hell over if that was to be the case.

Still, the kids were getting pretty close to hitting him, and Jack would be lying if he said that it didn't excite him. He'd been an outside participant in these winter games for so long, the games that he usually made possible, that it was a thrill to finally be involved.

Even if said involvement could end up jeopardizing his reputation as the unbeatable king of snowball fights.

Jack smiled to himself. Provided that happened, promises of more snow days or some frozen treats would buy their silence on the matter. That was the nice thing about kids. Offer them a treat and all threats to your amour-propre are forgotten.

For now, however, he was content to let the kids feel as though they had a fighting chance. He grinned when he realized they were actually getting desperate enough to coordinate. Caleb and Claude were scrambling after him on the playground equipment and eventually (after much frustration from the twins and teasing from Jack) the pair managed to pin Jack's legs to the ground. Or rather, the obnoxiously red plastic bridge they had finally ended up on. Pippa managed to catch up and grabbed onto his arm, all but binding him to the cold chains holding up the bridge as she held him down with all her might. A wheezing, red-faced Monty grabbed onto his other arm and mirrored Pippa, affixing it to the chains of the bridge.

Everyone held back a giggle when Sophie, trying with all her might, clasped onto Jack's torso in a similar fashion to a koala. "FOR DA CAUSE!" She yelled. Jack bit his lip trying to keep his growing amusement from ruining her genuine determination.

"_Hmmmm…Pippa, Claude and Caleb, Sophie, and Monty_," Jack mused to himself while the children held him down.

"_Where did Jamie and Cupcake go_?"

"Prepare to eat snow, FROST!" Jack found the answer to his question back on the snowy ground below him. Jamie and Cupcake, both with smug smirks and mischievous victory dancing in their eyes, held the biggest lump of snow they could scrap together in between them.

Jack was seriously going to explode if he had to keep holding his laughter back.

"This is seriously a good try guys. Really, I'm impressed. But tell me exactly what you're planning to do with that snowball." He breathed, the look of sweet triumph scrawled across his features.

Jamie snorted, not letting Jack's teasing phase him. "What does it look like, Jack? We're going to-"

Then, it clicked.

They were on the ground.

With a snowball both he and Cupcake were having trouble just holding up.

Jack was being held on the plastic bridge, nowhere near their potential thowing range. OR DROPPING RANGE.

"Son of a-"

Before Jamie could finish Jack reached both his icy hands out to tickle Pippa and Monty's necks. They shrieked, giggling while he shook his arms free. He wrangled his ankles from the twins, earning a frustrated yell from each. Sophie accidentally released her hold on Jack (a 2 year-old can only hold on for so long), and he threw himself up from the bridge into the wind laughing, pride still intact.

Just then, what had been stirring in the wind since that morning finally caught Jack's attention. He immediately tensed and skidded to a stop on the snowy earth, standing completely still and focused. So focused that he barely registered the smart of a snowball finally hitting its mark on his back.

"**I HIT HIM**!" Cupcake cheered. The rest of the children started to as well until Jamie shushed them. Jack's sudden stiffness frightened him, and as they registered it his friends became frightened as well.

Something was wrong.

"J-Jack?" Jamie managed to squeak out. He nervously shuffled over to Jack, clutching onto his frosted hoodie sleeve for comfort.

"Shhh…" Jack murmured, not breaking his gaze. There was a horrid feeling of unease in the air, almost as if Jack could see it condense into danger before his eyes.

Though he couldn't pinpoint it, something was terribly, terribly off.

"Hey…maybe we should head ba-"

As though on cue, the wind came barreling down with a chilling howl, slamming into Jack and the children with enough brute force to topple them over. Though bewildered and numb, Jack franticly leaned over to a trembling Jamie and took him into his arms, helping him stand and protecting him from the brunt of the wind's rage as they trudged to the rest of the frightened children.

"**HOLD ON! I'M COMING**!" Jack yelled above the roaring wind. Guiding Jamie under the bridge to a stable pillar to hold, he gathered Cupcake, Monty, Pippa, and the twins out of the wind and onto the ground, taking refuge under bridge with Jamie as the wind continued to bite at their cheeks and rip at their clothes.

"OKAY, OKAY. IS EVERYONE ALRIGHT?" Jack yelled. Feeble nods and a few sniffles answered him back, and for a moment Jack is relieved.

Until he realizes a certain blonde toddler is nowhere to be seen.


End file.
